Job 28:28

They dig down, they turn aside the underground stream, they cut paths that the strongest beasts have never walked and the sharpest-eyed birds have never seen. But in all this searching they never find wisdom... Men may discover much, and since Job's day they have discovered far more, but wisdom still escapes them. If Job could see all that people do and discover in our atomic age, he would say the same, only a hundred times more strongly.

There is no wisdom in all that. There is self in all that. There is what will make a man rich; there is what will bring money and perhaps distinction; but where shall wisdom be found?

The universe does not distract Him at all. He looks to the ends of the earth, and He sees not only in but under the whole heaven. Nothing is too delicate or too vast for His sight and rule. He gives the wind its weight (surely a remarkable thought and word for these days). He measures out the waters. He controls the rain and the lightning. Yet just as truly He laid down the foundation of all righteousness, and this for man on earth to hear. It is to give God His rights... It is to be morally subject to God as Master, fearing Him and turning from evil — the true wisdom and understanding of man.

The fear of the Lord (Adonai, the supreme Ruler and Master) is wisdom. It is bowing low in humility before Him, in whose presence seraphim cover their faces... This fear is not mere dread, but reverence, submission, worship. It includes repentance... To know God in this way prepares for, and includes, knowing His mercy and grace toward us — the full knowledge of the gospel. It is not knowledge of God, but being brought to Him, and learning His grace and love. This is more than mere knowledge; it is the key to it; it is eternal life.

Wisdom escapes people for one reason only: "there is no fear of God before their eyes." So they have no heart to turn from evil. The fear of the Lord is not terror, but a wholesome reverence that gives Him the place of supreme honour.

That is exactly what a soul feels at conversion. He may know nothing more than that. He sees that he has been in almost every evil, and he turns away from it. A real sight of Christ is enough to do that by the Spirit of God, and the fear of the Lord. That is what lasts, even when souls are no longer taken up with their evil and talking about it — the fear of the Lord and turning from evil.

This sets the conscience directly in the presence of God, which is its only true place. Satan's aim is to keep the conscience out of this place — to bring it under the power and authority of man, to push something in between the conscience and the authority of Christ the Lord. It does not matter what it is. It may be a creed or a statement of faith with a great deal of truth in it. It may be the opinion of one man or of a group of men... God's Word must rule me — God's pure and simple Word, not man's explanation of it.